Life In Hell
by Bella The Strange
Summary: Following on from, and containing spoilers for, Death In Heaven. Jack/Master, very messed up hurt/comfort relationship.
1. Freedom

**Disclaimer** : I don't own it. I also don't have any money, so sueing me over something I already said I don't own would be pointless anyway.

 **Warnings** : Sex happens off screen (Jack/Master). References to rape. Something that could look like domestic violence if taken out of context. I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have to say this, but since she acts as the narrator I will; the Master's morals and opinions are in no way a reflection of the author's.

 **Author's Note** : I'm not dead yet! Nor are any of my other fics. I've just been getting more involved in real life stuff. I currently have about seven jobs (all small, volunteering ones, but they do add up). I _do_ still intend to keep writing as and when I can, but it's not as easy as it used to be to find the time. Please be patient with me.

x x x

 **Chapter 1: Freedom**

x x x

She couldn't believe her ears, as the Doctor talked Little Miss Clara down from murder, only with the promise to do it himself. To kill her. After all they'd been through together.

As he turned on her she backed away a step at the look on his face, "Seriously?"

He didn't answer, and he really didn't need to. That look. That look said it all.

"Oh, Doctor." she didn't entirely believe it, wanted to laugh in his face. But that look. "To save her soul?" That silly little mayfly. She'd be gone before they knew it, humans did tend to just drop off like that.

Oh, come on, he has to have something up his sleeve. Neither of them ever wanted to outright kill the other before. Sure, she joked about it, but she was meant to be the evil one! She turned to run, but only made it two steps before she realised... she really didn't want to be shot in the back. That would be too kind to him.

She stopped between two gravestones and turned to smile at him, "But who, my dear, will save yours?"

He didn't really want to. She could tell. She was sure of it. But then Little Miss Clara had her claws in. Couldn't disobey the human, he liked them too much.

And she had pulled her second-last ace with Gallifrey's coordinates. Sure, they weren't _entirely_ accurate, but close enough. If he had taken her with him, she could then have admitted to the discrepancy.

Well, to hell with it. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of _real_ information that could save lives, when he could just listen and then kill her anyway. Better to take it to her grave.

"Say something nice." she asked hopefully, irony very much intended. He stared at her with confusion for a moment, and then shrugged. Really? Not even one little thing? "Please?"

He looked right through her for another half-second, then, "You win."

Close enough. "I know."

He aimed the disintegrator at her.

She closed her eyes. Didn't want it to end like this.

Then again, there were worse alternatives.

But where she expected an unfamiliar and probably painful sensation from the disrupter in his hand, instead she felt the familiar shiver of the teleporter. Like ice up her spine. Hard to forget what that felt like.

She didn't even see where it came from.

And then the pain began.

It wasn't physical. No, this pain was all in her head, but that didn't make it any less real.

It was a void, an emptiness. Something was gone, but it hurt so much she couldn't process what or how. Couldn't even think to understand why she was alive or where she was. All she could do was curl up into a foetal position and whimper at the agony. It completely overwhelmed her, and what few conscious threads of thought she could conjure merely wished he _had_ killed her, instead of leaving her to this torture.

She had no concept of how much time had passed before she began to recover a sense of coherent thought.

She was pretty sure she wasn't dead. Pretty sure that _real_ death - not her playthings in the Nethersphere - didn't hurt, once you got there. Also, pretty sure there was no real afterlife, but she had no evidence for that one. None that she trusted, at any rate.

The searing pain in her mind had dulled to a just barely tolerable ache, and she began to try to figure out where it came from. It took some time for her to realise what it was. The telepathic equivalent of having been stabbed by a barbed blade... then waited long enough to tolerate its presence, before ripping it out.

She had lived with an open wound in her mind for centuries, and now it had been torn apart again.

Tentatively, so not to hurt herself further, she probed for the familiar telepathic connection. The unwanted presense intruding on all she dared think, so old now she had almost learned to accept it. It was gone.

Sense of utter relief. She was free.

But then why was there an echo in the silence in her mind? She didn't understand. Something _else_ was wrong as well. Something else missing, and this time she really couldn't place it.

It was too quiet. Like the rest of the universe just didn't exist.

Like she was cut off.

Cut off from all external telepathic influences. Really? But how?

It was at this point that she began to take account of her physical body, and in fact, physically she was quite comfortable, nestled among soft pillows and blankets. She cracked one eye open, only to be greeted by darkness. When she tried to sit up, her head span, vision swam, and she fell back at once.

She let out a soft groan at the pain in her mind. Maybe she could just sleep for a moment.

x x x


	2. Imprisonment

x x x

 **Chapter 2: Imprisonment**

x x x

She woke sharply to blinding light very suddenly searing right through her eyelids. Stabbing directly at the still-intense pain in her mind.

Once again, she had no idea how much time had passed. For a Time Lord - or Lady - this was most unusual, even when in pain.

Okay, maybe she hadn't fallen asleep. More like passed out.

She pulled one arm up to shield her eyes, and groaned once more at the pain.

Her eyes adjusted slowly to the light, and she carefully tried to prop herself up on one elbow - this time succeeding in not passing out - and peered out past her fingertips to see what had caused this sudden change.

It was a light switch. Naturally.

But standing next to said light switch, in the doorway of the bland room she found herself in, was a very familiar man. And he looked about as surprised to see her here as she was to see him.

Jack Bloody Harkness, looking somewhat deflated from his usually irrepressible persona, and wearing casual trousers and t-shirt instead of his preferred pseudo-military attire.

His expression showed confusion. This was good, it meant he didn't know who she was, and therefore would not immediately try to kill her. So she decided to play the innocent damsel until she figured out what was going on. It wasn't a difficult act to pull off, right now, anyway. She could do the 'in distress' part without even lying.

She tried to sit up properly, but found her sense of balance wanting. Not so much dizziness this time, as an absence of spatial awareness. That same emptiness that she had felt before... seemed to include some of her higher senses.

As she collapsed into the pillows behind her, Harkness rushed forward, and asked, "Are you alright? How did you get here?"

She grunted in pain, then answered with absolute honesty, if somewhat mumbled, "No, and don't know." Okay, she knew a teleporter was involved, but that was not a full and coherent answer on its own, and there still were a lot of variables she did not know about how she got here.

His touch on her shoulder all but burned, both for humans' naturally higher body-heat and for his immortal curse. She flinched instinctively, and he immediately removed the offending hand. "What's wrong, can I help?"

A brief analysis of her physical needs did come up with one answer to that, so she obligingly offered it up, "Water?"

And he was gone, back out the door. The piercing light remained.

She stared off to the side, not at all willing to raise her head and get a clear look around. The walls were plain pale grey. Painted, she noticed now, and in good condition. Her blankets and pillows were white. Almost hospital-white, but far softer to the touch. Aside from the equally plain door, she hadn't noticed any other features of the room. No windows, not even a clear source for the lighting, it just seemed to be coming from the entire ceiling.

The next thought that occurred did worry her, and she quickly looked at her own body.

Clothed. Good start, especially with the freak nearby. In fact, these were the same clothes she had worn when she had been teleported, but as she checked more thoroughly, she noticed her belt, boots and... hairpins... were missing.

Yes, the hairpins were all gone, she could tell by the way the thick strands of messy black hair got in her face as she tried to turn her head. She had pinned it up for a reason, damnit. It was untidy in its natural state.

Then she realised... her bra was also missing. The shirt and coat were still intact, but the bra was definitely gone.

Why would it be gone? She could understand removing boots before putting someone in a bed. Maybe even the belt and hairpins, as they were surface items... but to remove the bra, either it went as she teleported, or someone had removed the rest of her clothes just to get at it, and then put her shirt and coat back just so.

She would very much like to put her money on the teleporter there, but really... couldn't rule anything out.

But then she put the pieces together. She was missing everything she had been wearing that had contained metal. Belt buckle, boot buckles, hairpins, underwire.

No metal. That was an interesting little detail.

Come to think of it, Harkness had been wearing drawstring trousers, not anything with a zipper.

And speak of the devil...

Harkness returned with a glass of water, and sat on the edge of the bed next to her. With some trepidation she tried to sit up again, and he helped her with one arm around her shoulders to stop her from falling back. She felt that burning sensation from his curse once more, but while she didn't flinch this time, it still made her uncomfortable.

Oddly, not nearly as much as it had during her last life. Back then, he had felt literal waves of temporal energy buffeting around Harkness. The best Earth-based analogy would be to suggest Time was a river, Harkness was an immovable rock in the rapids, and a Time Lord's perception of the curse was getting splashed in the face by the water that should have flowed on smoothly by.

Except the water felt like fire, and there was a lot more of it to get hit by.

Now, it felt like so much less. It still all-but burned to the touch, but looking at him didn't hurt anymore. Being in his presence didn't make her skin itch, or her bones freeze.

She didn't really understand the difference. Why would his curse change? Its very nature was immutability.

And meanwhile in the present... she took careful sips of the water, which he did not in fact hand to her, but instead held in front of her and allowed her to drink from it. She wasn't sure if it was just what humans called manners, or if he really believed she would drop it if he let go. She wasn't sure she wouldn't drop it, either, so she allowed this for now.

Besides, damsel in distress.

After her thirst was satisfied, and she was somewhat assured she could manage to sit without assistance, she looked to him and asked, "Where are we?" Her first mumbled and not at all controlled words, earlier, had been in an Arcadian accent - not entirely dissimilar to an upper-class British accent, if it was put on by an emotionally constipated American - so she chose to stick with that for consistency's sake.

"It's a prison, designed to look like a tolerable home." he said, in a low monotone that implied he'd been here entirely too long, and really didn't like it. "Have you heard of UNIT?"

Oh bugger. To lie or merely mislead?

Misleading was a lot easier than outright lying, and could lead to a lot fewer awkward questions in the long run.

"Alien-hunters, right? The self-proclaimed 'good guys', who prefer to capture rather than kill."

Harkness let out a morbid half-laugh at that, "Yeah. I used to work for the killers. Probably why UNIT never liked me."

She chose to give him a nervous look for that. If she was going to play damsel in distress, and still admit to knowing who UNIT was, then she was going to play the harmless-little-alien-girl. Okay, woman, no point deluding herself there. Still, there are enough species that look like humans, especially known to Earth in the fifty-first century, that he would be spectacularly unlikely to guess Time Lord first.

And even if he did, what're the odds he'd guess her name?

"What do you mean?" she asked, careful to amplify that illusion of nervousness into her voice, and edge away from him a little bit now.

He shook his head, "I didn't mean it like that." He gave her a curious look, "You not from around this planet, then?"

She half-laughed at how utterly accurate that line was. And how corny, too. "You could say that. I've been here for a while, though."

"I'm not from Earth either." he admitted, "When I first got stranded here, I was, ah, forced into the service of a group who also hunted aliens, and treated us all as threats, whether we really were or not."

"So are you using 'alien' in the not-from-Earth context, or the not-human context, when you describe yourself as one?" she asked slyly. She had, in fact, always wondered that about him.

"Bit of both, mostly not from Earth." he shrugged, which had the - she hoped unintentional - side effect of pulling her a little closer to him, "I'm mostly human, but my father's mother wasn't. Not sure what she was, if I'm honest, but she definitely wasn't human. What about you?"

She smiled sadly, "Both. All the way."

"Feeling better now?" he asked her.

"A little, yes." That was the truth, though she was by no means feeling good. Just not as bad as before. She might be able to stand now, but she was still just barely holding coherent strands of thought together, and really didn't want to try it yet.

"Should I let you get some rest, then?" he asked, "Or would you like to come into the kitchen and get something to eat? Or I could bring you something, if you'd prefer?"

She gave him a crooked smile, "Can't tell if you're trying to butter me up, or just sincerely being helpful." Time Lords didn't _do_ sex, not for many generations before her time... but she understood the theory. If she could play into his nature, she might be able to earn his trust. Not that she was entirely sure what she would do with his trust, if she did get it.

He grinned, "Can't it be both?"

She shoved him weakly, but playfully, still forcing herself to smile. "I think I need to rest."

He immediately stood, checking she wasn't about to fall over when he let her go, and crossed the tiny room to pick something up from just outside the door, "I found clean clothes, if you want. Probably more comfortable to sleep in."

She blinked, surprised by that gesture, but then nodded, "Thank you." He set the clothes on the bed next to her, and headed for the door, turning the light out as he went.

Leaving her alone in the semi-darkness, her only light-source now seeping in from the next room, through the leaned-to but not closed door.

She listened for a moment, to his retreating footsteps, and then when she was sure he was gone she examined the clothing he had given her. Plain, bland, just like this room. But it did feel soft, and her dress was a touch constricting around the waist. Alright then, she supposed she would play along with this as well.

x x x


	3. Nightmares

x x x

 **Chapter 3: Nightmares**

x x x

Pain ripping through her, harsh bony hands gripping her arms, burning like ice against her skin. And those eyes, full of fire and froth and rage, penetrating her very soul.

She couldn't fight, and couldn't flee. All she could do was scream.

He was hurting her. So. Very. Much.

She couldn't think, couldn't feel anything but the pain, and echoes of his rage tearing through her mind. Yet somehow she knew through this, she was nothing, she was his possession, his plaything, his slave. He could do anything he wanted to her, and she could do nothing to stop him.

And that terrified her even more than all the pain in the universe.

But then something shifted. Gentle grip on her shoulders, not the chilling grasp of her tormentor. Warm paradox replaced icy pain, and suddenly she awoke... to find Jack Harkness leaning over her with genuine concern in his eyes.

She blinked several times, and then she shivered, pushing his hands away from her.

The way he watched her felt uncomfortable, and soon she realised why. He was seeing her pain... and interpreting it correctly. Or at least, as close as a human mind could guess. She could use this to her advantage. He could clearly tell she was tortured, possibly even accurately guessing the level of trauma she felt for it. His first, very human, guess would probably be that she had been raped.

Not as far off the mark as she liked to tell herself.

But then instead of conjuring up a suitable lie to evoke the reaction she wanted out of him, she found herself telling the truth.

"My- my species, we..." she began shakily, sitting up. He seemed surprised when she leaned towards him, and let him wrap his arms around her. To be honest she was surprised by it herself, but something about him drew her in. "Our greatest form of intimacy is telepathy. And he... he tortured my mind. I- I can't... can't even- there aren't words in this language for that."

"I think there's one." he said distantly, running fingers through her hair in an oddly comforting gesture.

Comforting. That was probably the last word she would have expected to find herself associating with this individual. Still, that was definitely what it felt like.

She really hadn't meant to relive that memory. Usually she would have much greater control over her own subconscious than this. But then, there was still something very much missing from her mind, and she still wasn't sure what it was. It was maddening to sense such a loss and not be able to place it.

After several long seconds of silence, Harkness pulled back from that comforting embrace, and asked, "Want to talk about it?"

She shook her head slowly. It was difficult enough to cope with the memories as it was. Putting them into words seemed absolutely insurmountable, especially in this primitive Earth language. Besides, what Rassilon had done to her wasn't something she could easily explain, even if she wanted to.

He was still watching her, perhaps too intently. She did wonder what he thought he was seeing in her body-language, but whatever it was he seemed to accept her wishes. "Come on, then. You need to eat. I've no idea how it works, but the fridge always has something good when I'm hungry. Nothing special... just good."

She half-smiled, half-frowned at that. Puzzled by his description of it. A mystery was always appealing, even if she didn't feel entirely recovered yet.

Then she let her confusion fade, and the smile take over. It took some effort to keep that smile benign, as she spoke, "Yes, I am hungry." What was the socially acceptable human phrase? Oh yes. "I could eat a horse." ... or a human. No, she had not quite gotten past _that_ aspect of her last life yet, either.

x x x

When she left the bedroom, it turned out this prison looked an awful lot like a normal early-twenty-first century Earth flat. There was a decent sized living room, with a couch, a small table with two chairs... and three doors. One door led to the bedroom she had woken in, another led to a small but functional bathroom, and the third to a similarly sized kitchen.

The odd thing about the kitchen was that it lacked any appliances besides a fridge and microwave. She was pretty sure Earthlings considered this far less than acceptable in a food preparation area. She certainly did.

Still, when she opened the fridge there was a particularly tasty looking sandwich sitting on a plate at eye level. Claiming this for herself, she then opened a cupboard, and found exactly one kettle, already containing water, one teacup with saucer and teaspoon, a packet of one of the better brands of Earth-grown tea, and a large jar of sugar.

This was suspiciously convenient. Still, she was not going to complain about free food. It just added to the interesting little mystery of this place.

Harkness was standing in the doorway of the kitchen as she poured the tea, and added six spoonsfuls of sugar.

"Trying to get diabetes?"

She gave him a dubious look, "Entirely aside from the fact that disease is caused by metabolic issues, not glucose consumption... my species can't get it."

And Time Lords have a spectacular sweet tooth. Most foods found on Gallifrey that were of nutritional value to the natives were also obscenely sweet by Earth standards. It wasn't actually glucose, either. It was a unique vitamin that converted solar radiation into a source of energy. Time Lords had been artificially genetically adapted to convert proteins into this energy in the absence of their native star system, but regular Gallifreyans wouldn't fare so well beyond the confines of their homeworld and its local colonies.

She must have got lost in memories of home, because the next thing she knew, Harkness' hand was on her shoulder, and she realised she was still stirring the tea. "Are you alright?" he asked.

She snorted weakly, dropping the spoon on the counter with a too-loud clatter, "Of course I'm not alright. We established that earlier."

He gestured to the living room, "Are you sure you don't want to talk? It doesn't have to be about what happened."

Her lip twitched faintly in the direction of a smile, and she nodded, "Alright then."

He picked up her sandwich - she resisted the desire to cause him physical harm for it - and brought it to the table. She followed slowly with her tea, and sat down across from him. She noted with some ambivalence that he had set the sandwich in front of her, and made no attempt to steal it. Part of her wanted that trivial excuse to get angry at him... part of her just wanted the sandwich damnit... and another part, which she very much did not like to admit to, really did want someone to talk to.

And he was right here, offering her exactly that.

After several minutes, during which she sipped her hot tea for a moment, then ate half her sandwich nice and slowly, he was the one to break the silence, "So where are you from?"

She felt strange when she heard those words. When she actually thought on how to tactfully answer. Instead of just spouting a name, she had to consider how to describe it without giving it away, and that made her really _remember_ it. Her eyes burned, and she blinked involuntarily a few times, before finally speaking softly, "My homeworld was beautiful."

She saw the way he reacted to that. He recognised the past tense, the pain at the memories. But he didn't say anything, so she kept speaking.

"Binary star system, red and white, just outside the gravitational pull of a pulsar. Primarily orbiting the white star. About three times Earth size, and one-point-six Earth gravity." To anyone else these might sound like trivial statistics, but to her they were still a part of her home, and to any Time Lord understanding how something beautiful worked made it even more appealing. "The upper atmospheric layer was dense, tinted the sunlight to gold, but couldn't filter out the radiation of the pulsar."

He was watching her with the kind of fascination of one who really innocently just wants to know what you're telling them. She saw no suspicion in his eyes, no dots being connected. That likely meant the Doctor hadn't spoken of Gallifrey to him in any detail. The gold sky was always the first thing anyone mentioned.

"The plants grew red to resist the radiation. The wildlife, and eventually my species, evolved to incorporate the radiation into our biological makeup. It took intensive genetic engineering to make it safe for us to ever leave our home solar system. I've heard stories of ancient cults that could manipulate the radiation in our bodies into a form of 'magic', though later research shows that while that's _possible_ , it drastically shortens our life-spans.

"My family wasn't the richest or most powerful. On Earth, owning land makes you gentry, on my world the opposite is true. Living on the edge, or worse outside, the major cities was considered outright unsafe. Nobody in their right mind would go out there, they would tell us, so who would lay claim to such unwanted territory? My father was not exactly... fond of tradition, to put it politely. We lived on the outer edge of the capital city, and owned land beyond."

She smiled faintly, remembering as she spoke, "I grew up free to go outside the official sanctuary of the city. Something most wouldn't dare dream of. Spending summers playing in fields of red grass, not a care in the universe." she sighed, feeling that burning in her eyes again, and firmly denying that it meant she was close to tears. "It's all gone now. Burned to ash. Everything outside the cities was turned to volcanic ruin, long ago now. By the time I left, it wasn't really home anymore."

She really couldn't keep talking about it anymore, so pretended she was just continuing to eat the sandwich, to hide the fact she was nearly choking on those last words.

What surprised her was his response, "I know the feeling."

She looked up, staring straight at him with shock. Really? He dared insinuate he understood the devastation that had happened to her world?

He attempted and failed a smile, "Yeah. My world was very Earth-like. A human colony a few miles from the site of an ancient Alteran ruin. Founded half for a new place to live, half for the archaeologists to get off on. I was a third-generation colonist born there. It was so beautiful, the wise-ass survey team who first landed there called the planet Eden. And for the first twelve years of my life, it certainly seemed like paradise. I've never felt safer anywhere else, since. Which, considering what happened, is a bit terrifying in itself."

She blinked in surprise at this revelation, but then just had to know, "What happened?"

He shook his head, and she could see in his expression that he did not want to talk about it. She supposed it was a fair trade for him not asking what happened to ruin her homeworld.

What did surprise her was that she couldn't sense his emotions. Usually she could tell how a person was feeling without needing to read facial expressions or body-language. Of course, she understood body-language, she just didn't usually need to resort to it... unless she was dealing with another telepath who was actively blocking her.

She was pretty sure Harkness couldn't do that. Never managed it during the year she ruled the world. Still, it warranted investigation. Was it something about him, or was she being blocked from _all_ telepathic contact, not just that outside this prison?

x x x


	4. Boredom

x x x

 **Chapter 4: Boredom**

x x x

Some time passed. It was impossible to tell how much without either her time-sense or some kind of window onto the outside world through which to observe daylight or lack thereof. Harkness would say three days, as he had chosen to sleep three times. She would rather suggest only twenty-nine hours. It was her best count without her time-sense, and she kind of wanted to make him feel like he was going insane.

Regardless, he didn't bother with conversation during that time. She could almost be comfortable with the silence between them, if his curse didn't still put her a bit on edge when he got too close.

She had attempted to discern the workings of the fridge, and how it managed to always contain exactly what they wanted to eat (within reason - she couldn't quite persuade it to give her a severed human arm just to freak Harkness out... nor could she convince it of the lie that any sane sentient being could actually enjoy the taste of over-priced excrement like caviar). Unfortunately she couldn't muster the physical strength to move it to access the back, and Harkness was simply uncooperative. Her best guess involved teleporters, though how it was decided what to teleport in remained a mystery.

There was no sink, nor anywhere to dispose of rubbish. Only the fact that plates, leftovers and other unwanted items vanished when no one was looking. Again, she guessed at teleportation, and would absolutely love to get her hands on the mechanisms behind it. That would be an easy escape route if only she could gain access to it.

She had tested the walls, only to find them entirely too solid. Nothing in the prison could even make a dent. Harkness had muttered, "Yeah, tried that already." and continued to be utterly unhelpful.

She had even tried to tear up the drain in the shower... but after much swearing, several broken fingernails, and not even a scratch on the object she had been attempting to destroy, she gave that up as worthless as well.

Now she was beginning to realise there was no actual form of entertainment anywhere to be seen. Once she exhausted her immediate ideas for escape, she found herself sitting on the couch, wondering what to do.

There was food. There was a bed. There was a bathroom. And there was a couch. She could eat, sleep, bathe, or sit and stare at the wall.

Well this was going to get old fast. She could be very patient, but that usually only worked when she was plotting something. It was kind of difficult to plot when she didn't even know where she was, nevermind how to get out of here.

It was to these beginnings of boredom that Harkness wandered in from the kitchen, and held out a bar of chocolate to her. "This was in the kitchen, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't for me."

She eyed the offered food with suspicion. Milk chocolate, so it would at least be sweet. Cocoa had never been one of her preferred drugs. Then again, tastes change with each regeneration, and she hadn't tried it since playing the role of Harold Saxon, when he had been weaselled into it by Lucy. Of course, Lucy had liked those bitter high-cocoa content chocolates... nearly made him sick.

She really needed to stop trying to play with women. They were manipulative dangerous creatures, yet somehow she just never learned.

Still, she shrugged, and took the chocolate from Harkness. She was about ninety percent sure that whatever was controlling their environment wouldn't allow poison to be present... only sixty percent guessing the freak wouldn't try it anyway.

He was drinking alcohol.

She gave him a very sceptical look for that, "We're allowed drugs in our prison?"

"Never enough to have any fun with." he conceded sadly.

Well, it could be worse. But still, "So what are we supposed to do with our time here?"

He stared at her for a few seconds, before seeming to realised this was a serious question. Then he laughed. Literally doubled over laughing, set his drink down on the table so as not to spill it, and descended into hysterics. Absolutely mad hysterics. She simply watched this with morbid detachment. She had to make a concerted effort not to tap her foot impatiently, because she knew what rhythm would come out if she did.

When he finally calmed down enough, she reached out and shoved him right off the couch.

He was still snickering as he sat up, now on the floor, to tell her, "We're supposed to die here."

She blinked, stared for half a second, then asked sharply, "What?"

He chuckled morbidly, "Oh, nothing dramatic. Just old age. Possibly boredom. One of those two."

She deftly stood up collected the bottle of alcohol, marched over to the bathroom door, opened it, and threw the offending beverage in there, closing the door before the shattering sound echoed through it.

"What'd you do that for?"

"It looked like you'd had too much." she said curtly, "Now please do tell me where you got this ludicrous theory from."

He scowled at the bathroom door for a moment... then his eyes drifted to the wall next to it. He continued to stare at the wall as he answered, "I've been here long enough to see it happen. Seven times."

Okay, very disturbing, and definitely deserving of further investigation, but for now time to play innocent. "I thought you said you were mostly human? What, were all the other prisoners already on their death-beds, or something? How long have you even been here?"

He snorted in what looked very much like self-disgust. "I'm immortal. I don't age, and I don't stay dead. Those other prisoners, they were all young when I met them." he glanced up, "Younger than you."

She rolled her eyes. Her vanity and the facts had a brief argument, and both got a smack on the nose with a rolled up newspaper for their troubles. Neither were relevant to this situation.

After a brief hesitation, during which his gaze drifted back to the wall, he added, "I've no idea how long I've been here. Far too long."

She frowned, "Well, what year was it when you were put here?"

"Twenty-twelve."

Well that was just downright bothersome. Some form of temporal dilation, causing time within the prison to move much more rapidly than outside. She didn't even know that many species capable of such technology, and twenty-first century humans were definitely _not_ on that list. She supposed it was worth telling him, at least enough for him to do his own damned maths, "It was twenty-fourteen when I was sent here. November eleventh, to be specific."

He scowled at that, and turned to really look at her. For a moment he looked ready to argue, but then he saw something in her face that stopped him, "That's... that's not good."

No. It really wasn't. She began to realise... he had been here for seven lifetimes (give or take what species the other prisoners had been). Probably alone for large portions of time on top of that, as well. She thought losing her telepathy since she had been here was stressful, painful, maddening. She couldn't imagine how a human mind coped with such isolation and yet still managed to feign courtesy and reason.

She sighed, and crouched down next to him, "Are you alright?"

He shook his head, more to shake off whatever he had been thinking of than anything else. Then he snorted weakly, "Not for a long time."

She smiled sadly, "Yeah. Me neither."

She helped him back up onto the couch, and they sat in uneasy silence for a short time. She glanced at the chocolate on the table, and considered trying it, purely for something to do. But then she looked back to him again.

And found him nose-to-nose with her. An instant later, he was kissing her.

Startled by this unexpected behaviour, it took her a good few seconds to process exactly what was happening, and then she pushed him away.

It then took another few seconds for her to find the right words to demand, "What was that for?"

Not that it had felt at all unpleasant. She would probably rank him the second-best kisser she had personally experienced. Unfortunately, in spite of her best efforts, the Doctor definitely did not compare, though that was mostly because he had not been in any way enthusiastic about the experience.

Maybe he'd change his mind now he knew who she was? A girl could dream.

But back to the present. Harkness seemed quite confused by her rejection. He glanced at that blank bit of wall again, then back to her. Then he shook his head, "Well... so far, when another prisoner wasn't attracted to me, they got their own bedroom. I- I thought..."

She now frowned at that bit of wall, "I see." she said slowly. She stood and walked over to the blank wall, "Right here?"

"Yes."

She ran her fingers over the wall, finding nothing unusual. She tried knocking, consciously only striking the wall twice, so as to avoid that infernal pattern. Nothing. "Huh. Well, I guess whoever runs this place doesn't get it right every time, then."

"Well you did want to know what I did for fun around here." he muttered under his breath.

"Sex." she said flatly.

"When the opportunity presents itself. Yes."

She rolled her eyes, "I'm sorry to break it to you, dear. But I'm asexual."

"I won't argue with you. I'm just going to point out that mind-altering chemicals are the best thing you can get in this place, and those we produce naturally are far more effective than what you can get from this." He handed her the chocolate, and then wandered into the bedroom.

When he closed the door, she glanced at the food-like product again.

Yes, she got the insinuation. Chocolate stimulated the same brain-chemicals in human women that sex did, albeit on a much smaller scale. Then again, she wasn't human, and she actually had no idea if it would even affect her at all.

She was hungry, and honestly she was curious as well. So she carefully unwrapped the chocolate, broke off a small piece, and tried it.

It turned out she liked chocolate. She really liked chocolate. It took significant mental effort to consolidate her previous distaste with this new-found adoration of it. Something as simple as an entire new set of taste buds simply did not cover it. She understood logically that there were many variables, from the form of the chocolate itself to the rearranged brain-chemistry of this particular regeneration, but that still didn't make it make any more sense.

She could now easily see how women claimed addiction to this stuff.

But it was all gone, now. She had eaten it all.

She checked the kitchen, and couldn't find any more. Damnit, the freak was right. They really weren't allowed enough intoxicant of any kind to have fun with. Okay, chocolate was _not_ an intoxicant. Just really really delicious.

She was getting tired and frustrated, and she really didn't feel like putting up with this place's shit anymore... so she decided to go to bed. Rest, and reset her mind. There was one problem with that plan, however. There remained only one bedroom. She knew perfectly well this meant confronting Harkness. She was prepared for that. Besides, what was the worst he could do?

On second thoughts, best not to think about _could_. Maybe go with what was the worst he _would_ do? He had always seemed the chivalrous type. She was pretty sure he wouldn't do anything to her without her permission.

At least as long as he didn't know who she was... then all bets were officially off.

Yes. Bed it would be, then. For sleep. Just sleep.

And nothing else.

x x x


	5. Comfort

x x x

 **Chapter 5: Comfort**

x x x

The nightmares returned. Cold and bitter darkness, should feel so empty but instead she felt claustrophobic.

And his voice, murmuring in her ear - she could feel his breath on her neck, even though he wasn't really there. This was all in her mind. Their minds. He was forcing her to witness it, against her will.

"This is death. True death, not the cheap excuse you think you feel when you regenerate. This is what happens when your life truly _ends_. Take it all in, the desolation, the terror. It isn't lack of life, it is a _presence_ of nothing."

Shivering cold, as if cold could be a thing in its own right instead of lack of warmth.

Blinding darkness, as if it were animate, rather than merely lack of light.

Death was not merely lack of life. It was a beast in its own right, and it hunted her now. She was terrified, couldn't think, couldn't feel, couldn't fight it.

She felt so helpless.

So lost.

So alone, even as he whispered words of torment into her soul.

But then it began to fade... warmth wrapping around her like a comforting blanket.

And she woke up.

She found herself wrapped up not only in the blanket over her, but also in Harkness' arms. He had rolled over in his sleep, and was now right behind her, holding her gently. She believed the Earth term for this sleeping position was 'spooning'. She had to squirm in order to turn onto her back, so she could see him clearly and confirm that yes, he was in fact still asleep.

He had been asleep when she had entered the bedroom. She had carefully chosen the farthest edge of the bed from him to lie down on, and had been mildly surprised that he remained asleep and allowed her to steal the entire blanket without even subconscious protest. She had bundled up with her back to him, and then...

Well, she didn't want to think too much on that dream.

What if it was true? Rassilon was said to have truly cheated death, before he had even invented Regeneration.

Harkness had been dead many times, perhaps he could tell her.

Yet somehow, in spite of that potentially very informative resource lying right next to her... she really didn't want to know.

Instead she focused on the fact that his presence had roused her from her nightmare. Twice, now, in fact. That was not a coincidence. It had to be something about him - either his mind or his curse, she wasn't sure which - that repressed those memories in her.

She most certainly was not complaining. She could quite happily tolerate sharing a bed with him, nymphomania or no, if it kept those horrors at bay. She just had to figure out how to explain that to him without it ending up sounding somehow sexual.

The truth was still an option, she supposed. She didn't need to reveal her identity to explain away a relatively benevolent presence dispelling nightmares. She might even let him know a bit about the nightmares, to clarify exactly how much she would value his specifically platonic physical proximity.

Yes. That decided, she now tried to figure out how to get out of bed without disturbing him. He was holding her quite securely.

But now she wasn't tired. She did not currently require this proximity to him. In fact, all it was doing was reminding her of what he _used_ to feel like. What he _really_ felt like outside the psychic repression of this prison. Now she was beginning to get uncomfortable, and tried to squirm out of his arms, no longer caring if it woke him.

And of course it did.

He was startled by the position in which he woke, and immediately backed away from her, seemingly horrified at himself. She wasn't sure whether to find it cute that he was so considerate, or ridiculous that he misinterpreted the situation so dramatically. She found herself leaning towards ridiculous, and laughing at his sudden retreat.

"Sorry, I didn't mean-" he began, but she interrupted quickly.

"I don't mind." she only realised after she said it that it was an echo of every other sentient being when the Doctor told Harkness off for flirting. That was a distant memory, but an oddly clear one.

Still. That statement seemed to need more explanation than when he understood his flirtations were welcome. She _had_ gone and told him (admittedly honestly) that she was asexual, after all.

She sighed, and took a moment to gather her scattered thoughts, before explaining carefully, "I'm not sexually attracted to you."

"Oh..." he seemed unsure how to react to that... which almost made her laugh, if this wasn't such a serious issue.

"But... I've been having nightmares. Memories of the things that were done to my mind. Your... proximity seems to dispel them." she clarified, "To that end, I don't mind..." she really did hesitate at this last word, but couldn't think of a better way to say it, so with some disdain in her tone she conceded to the only term she could think of, "Cuddling."

He clearly sensed her discomfort at the word, and grinned at it. "Well in that case, I'm happy to oblige." Before she could explain she was not at all sleepy and therefore didn't need any kind of comfort, he had wrapped his arms around her again, and pulled her into a very... snuggly hug.

She squirmed a bit, but when hugging was all he did, she relaxed and allowed it. She was so very unaccustomed to physical contact, it surprised her how pleasant it felt. His body was warm, and even his curse didn't really burn the way she always used to sense before they had been trapped together in this place. She was also surprised at how easily her body seemed to find a comfortable position in his arms. She could probably fall asleep again quite contentedly like this... if she weren't so very alert right now.

After a few moments of genuine comfort, she pushed against his chest so as to lean back and look him in the eyes, "I meant when I'm sleeping. We just woke up."

He chuckled, clearly amused by her behaviour, "Sure. Sorry." And just like that he let her go.

x x x

"So what are you in for?" Harkness asked.

It probably shouldn't have been a surprising question, but she had a lot on her mind, and really it did seem to come completely out of the blue. This was the first thing he had said to her all day (counting the day as the time she was awake, at least). The 'cuddling' discussion had still been fresh in her mind, as were thoughts of escape from this place.

"Oh... I thought I told you I didn't know?" she asked. Technically, true. Very technically. She had told him she didn't know _how_ she got here. Since she really didn't know _who_ had sent her, then any theories as to _why_ were pure conjecture. Just because she had built a Cyber-army and tried to destroy humanity again, didn't guarantee that was the reason for her current incarceration. Okay, maybe she was pushing the concept of truth a bit there... but somehow that was better than a complete lie. She really wasn't sure where this unexpected 'honesty' had come from.

He shrugged and seemed to consider this the end of the conversation.

"What about you?" she asked.

"I broke a UNIT General's arm." Harkness said with a shrug, "They had been pushing and provoking me for some time, anyway. Then this one was all set to execute a group of aliens on conspiracy charges. It was absolutely trumped up and ridiculous - something about 'brainwashing innocent humans'. They were _Zeltrons_. The only thing they were doing was having some fun - bloody General was just a prude. With an unfortunate amount of power."

"So you broke his arm?" Amusement, rather than disapproval, rang in her voice at this.

Not that Harkness noticed - he was extremely defensive as he explained, "He had a gun, and was about to use it."

"You saved the innocent aliens, then?" she asked sceptically.

"Yes. The other soldiers were too busy pumping bullets into me, to notice as the Zeltrons escaped. General told me all about it when I resurrected." he grinned at that memory, "He seemed a bit upset."

She laughed, "Oh, I'll bet. Never met a good solider, myself." she shrugging vaguely, "I mean, not among the living." She supposed, technically, that meant that the Brigadier could still be counted a good solider, since last time they spoke had been in the Nethersphere. Boy, had he been upset when he figured out who she was, and all.

"UNIT's had some very good people." Harkness admitted, "But the American side of it has the unfortunate tendency to recruit ex-military. Usually with undiagnosed personality disorders, or PTSD."

"Brains are tricky things." she observed distantly.

He glanced at her with concern, "How's yours?"

She snorted, "Still pretty messed up. Perhaps one day I'll tell you everything... but not today."

He shrugged, "I can live with that."

x x x

That evening, she dreamed again... but this time it was not a memory of Rassilon's torture. This time there was a sense of safety. She could still feel the warmth she had come to associate with Harkness' curse, even though within the dream he was nowhere to be seen.

She seemed to wake on the Valiant, in the Master bedroom. Yes, he had called it that. No, nobody else had laughed. The soft satin sheets on her bare skin, far more comfortable than the simple sheets and clothing she had fallen asleep in. She was aware that it was a dream - lucid dreaming was normal for Time Lords, as opposed to the rarity it tended to be for lesser species.

Still, usually there was a purpose to dreams, however obscure that purpose may seem to the aforementioned lesser species. She still felt the disconcerting lack of control over this dream as she had since arriving in this... prison.

This particular scenario seemed more fitting to Lucy than herself. Lucy had often tried to seduce him this way, lying naked in his bed, in the early hours as the sun streamed in the windows... just as it did now. Poor girl hadn't understood the fact he had just never been interested in sex... it hadn't been _her_ , specifically, just the entire concept in general. Even the idea of nudity didn't hold the same shock value or taboo to her as it would to humans - it was just a lack of clothing, not an invitation.

But now the door opened, and in strode... well, her past self. The form of Harold Saxon; suit, tie and everything. Did he always look that smarmy? Like a real-life politician.

"Hello beautiful." he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to her.

She rolled her eyes, "I honestly can't tell if this is my ego, or just another kind of nightmare." she replied. Hopefully joking.

"Are you really going to argue with such a nice dream? It's a beautiful day, we wallow in the lap of luxury, while the planet below wastes away in toil and agony. What could be better?"

"I'm really starting to wonder why anyone ever voted for us, even with Archangel." she said with amusement.

He laughed, leaning over her now so they were nose to nose, "I suppose if you don't want to play I should get to the point?"

"There's a point?" He raised one eyebrow when she asked that. She shook her head, "Oh no. We're a Time _Lord_ , not a Time Agent - don't you dare say-"

And he was laughing again. "Alright, I won't say it... but we were both thinking it, and that really is what counts."

She glared at him for that, but he did nothing, so with a dramatic eye-roll she asked, "Okay... so what is the point, then?"

"You've missed something obvious."

"What are you, my subconscious or my conscience? Because I'm pretty sure I murdered the latter when I was ten."

He turned and laid down on the bed next to her, on top of the sheets. Effectively threw himself onto the bed, really. And now as she was propped up on one elbow he was looking up at her. She gave him a sceptical look, but he just grinned, "Why so serious?" he asked, "Lighten up, the rest of the universe is going literally nowhere, while we do as we please inside this strange time bubble the freak described."

"I never really saw the appeal of talking to myself." she pointed out, "You're telling me only what I already know."

"In new ways, in the hope you'll look at things from a new angle. You have missed a _huge_ clue, out there in the real world."

"Is that prison real, then?"

He laughed yet again. She wondered if it was masochism or common sense that she wanted to punch him for it. "Good question." he replied, "I couldn't really say."

"You're not very much help. You know that, right?"

He grinned brightly, "You've missed two things, actually... but one of those is in your head."

She rolled her eyes at this, "I think I want to wake up now."

Very suddenly, with no warning, he pounced on top of her, so that now he was astride her hips, pinning her down onto the bed, and leaning over to whisper in her ear. "He's not stupid. He's just depressed. Humans are very useful, when properly motivated. Why else would the Doctor keep them around, hmm?"

He kissed her neck, biting lightly. It felt surprisingly good. At the same time, he pressed his body down against hers - even through his clothes and the bedsheets she felt physical evidence of his sexual arousal. Something she knew quite well had never happened in reality.

"You never know if you like something until you try it." he positively purred in her ear, "But I am quite sure you'd like how compliant he'd be for you if you indulged him."

It was with more ease than the laws of physics would normally allow that she pushed him away, hands on his shoulders to keep him at a suitable distance, "We did try it. Remember?"

He snorted, "An impotent human impersonation of us. Yana's pathetic excuse for adolescence does not count. Unless you think your body now functions in _exactly_ the same way?"

She pulled a disgusted face at that. "Of course not." Yana had been human. She was a Time Lord. _Huge_ differences even at the most basic cellular level.

He sat up straight, eliminating her need to hold him back any more. "Which is better, tell me. Boredom and imprisonment... or an experiment that will guarantee - whether you enjoy the act or not, and you _might_ \- that you gain a very compliant, intelligent, and imaginative assistant in your attempts to escape?"

She frowned at that. She very much did not like admitting the positive traits in the Doctor's chosen companions... but the freak had always been so difficult to manage as a prisoner. The number of almost-successful escape attempts had been troublesome at the time. Perhaps working together... "And you don't think there's any other way to gain his cooperation?"

"His cooperation? Easy. His inspiration? I'm guessing not so much."

She snorted, smiling weakly, "Humans."

He nodded, also smiling, "So easy to manipulate."

x x x


	6. Entertainment

x x x

 **Chapter 6: Entertainment**

x x x

By her best estimate - and oh how she hated not knowing the precice passage of time - it had been about a week since she had arrived in this prison. She had yet to act on the suggestion of that derranged little bit of her subconscious she had held a conversation with a few nights ago. She wanted to exhaust her other options first.

It wasn't that she disagreed with the theory that a happy human was a productive human... she simply disagreed with the principle of allowing humans to be happy. In any way.

Besides, she did believe there was something else she was missing. She just couldn't figure it out.

When finally she decided to confront him, and make the offer her dream had recommended, she found him sitting on the couch, staring despondantly at the blank wall.

She sat down next to him, and he turned to look at her.

"I've been thinking." she said bluntly, "This place is absolutely boring."

"You're only noticing that now?" he asked with bitter sarcasm.

She simply continued her planned speech, "My species became barren many generations before my time. We survived through an artifical form of reproduction. When it was concluded that we could never again evolve the ability to breed naturally, some genius scientist decided to edit our collective DNA to eliminate the ' _distraction_ ' of sexual attraction."

While he looked mildly interested in this bit of history, he did also seem visibly disappointed.

"I've been thinking about your offer, and I have a theory. Perhaps only the instincitve desire for sex was written out, and the experience itself would still be enjoyable in spite of that. I must admit, I'm curious to see if I'm right or not."

He regarded her with amused skepticism now, "So you're saying you _are_ asexual, by genetic design, but you _do_ want to try it anyway?"

"Yes, exactly." she answered with a bright smile.

He seemed momentarily speechless, but eventually he shrugged, "As long as you're okay with it... I'll take what I can get."

x x x

While she had no previous first-hand experience of sex (Yana definitely did not count... and if she had cared at all for humans she might even have felt sorry for his teenage crush, for how dramatically _that_ failed to even happen), she was not exactly oblivious. You couldn't live through late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century Earth without being bombarded with everyone's opinion on the subject, including some extremely detailed how-to guides.

From this third-hand information, she concluded that Harkness was _very_ good at it. He was also a very gentle and considerate lover. He did everything to please her before himself.

Foreplay did nothing for her - the teasing touches to what for humans would be secondary erogenous zones failed to stimulate any desire in her... but once he moved on to 'third base' things very quickly became quite enjoyable. She was about ninety-eight percent certain that overwhelming feeling of pleasure in the last two minutes had been an orgasm. Possibly more than one - it was a bit of a blur. From the theoretical knowledge she had acquired, she really couldn't think of anything else it could have been.

Now the two of them were laying naked on the bed next to one another. She was on her back, and he had his head resting on her breasts with an arm draped over her waist. Both quite content not to be bothered moving. She, at least, was still marvelling at the new experience, and the rush of hormones still coursing through her veins.

No wonder humans got so worked up over this activity. Sure, there were more fun things - world domination, teasing the Doctor, killing her enemies slowly - and she still didn't feel the primal instinct for more. She wouldn't go out of her way to do it again... but it was certainly fun.

But then very suddenly Harkness tensed. His arm, previously loosely draped over her waist now gripped tightly, holding her in place, and he looked up at her sharply. She couldn't quite make out the emotion she saw on his face - it looked like he really couldn't make up his mind between fear, hope and anger.

"You have two hearts."

Oh hells.

"There's only one species in the known universe with two hearts." he clarified, in case she might try to justify it as anything else. She knew better than that. But now what could she do about this?

She tried stalling. "Well... technically, all the vertebrate fauna on my homeworld has the same binary vascular system."

He gave her a very impatient look.

She sighed, "Alright, yes, I'm from Gallifrey. So what?"

"You're a Time Lord?" His emotions turned towards anger as he concluded this.

Again, logic couldn't argue with him. Time Lords were the only native Gallifreyans that were able to leave their local star system without suffering an extreme adverse reaction. So she merely nodded slowly.

"How did you escape the war?"

Oh, this again. She sighed, this time much more melodramatically, "You do realise some of us never answered the call to war, right? I can name three off the top of my head who never reported in for duty when the summons went out." The Rani, the Monk and the Corsair, to be specific. Just because they were all believed dead at the time, meant nothing. Especially not with the Monk - he was almost as tricky as her.

"But you weren't one of them?"

"How many deserters have Earth's wars had? If you had seen what was bearing down on my platoon of untrained teenagers, I'm pretty sure you'd have turned and run as well."

He seemed to accept this with some reluctance, the anger fading now as he realised she was quite correct. Desertion in war was a rational reaction to its horrors. That was true, even in the linear combat humans understood. The Time War had been infinitely worse.

The one thing he didn't seem to consider was, most Time Lords were not _strong_ enough to flee as she had done. Most had been given no choice but to fight even when they had no hope. Most died in terror with no idea what they were even really fighting, their own histories made into weapons to rip out their souls. How do you flee Time itself when you don't have such a close relationship to Death as she did?

"How many more do you think there are out there?" he asked.

She shook her head, "Without the central focus of Gallifrey, there's no way to tell. I thought I was alone until I found out some of the ridiculous things the Doctor's been up to lately. I'm pretty sure I've sensed new temporally sensitive life passing through this planet since then, as well, but I can't tell if that's more Time Lords, or something else entirely." Whatever it was, it was strong-willed and ambitious - she would have to catch it some day and break it in properly, or risk a new rival for universal domination.

His lip twitched in amusement at that, "You know the Doctor?"

She gave him a 'well duh' look, "Everyone knows the Doctor. Not always first hand, but everyone in the entire universe _does_ know him."

This, he accepted without further question. In fact, he laughed. "Fair point." But then when he was done laughing at the Doctor's expense, he looked her in the eyes and asked, "Sorry, I don't think I ever got your name?"

She blinked once, "Ever read T. S. Eliot's 'The Naming of Cats'?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but then shut it suddenly and thought for half a second, "You know, that makes a lot of sense."

She laughed, "Doesn't it, though? You humans have put a lot of thought into felines. You even imagine they've got nine lives."

He snorted. "That is... an interesting coincidence."

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah. Thing is, I don't think I deserve my most common name right now... so I'm going to be very kind to you and tell you my second name instead."

"Why wouldn't you deserve your own name?" he asked with a frown.

"Hypothetical scenario: The Doctor, who is known as a hero of pacifism... murders in cold blood. He'd never use that name again."

'As if I'd ask her to kill', she remembered with bitter fondness. Suddenly she wanted to find and thank whoever teleported her here, for saving him from himself. She liked her best enemy with his conscience intact, somehow.

"Me, well... I'd really rather not go into detail, but after what Rassilon did to me..."

"Rassilon?"

She was a little caught off guard at that. Even with humans, it surprised her to imagine anyone didn't know who Rassilon was. "He... he was the founder of the Time Lord order, inventor of Regeneration, greatest mind of his age. He was the closest thing our species believed in to a god - we even use his name in vain in the same way your people do their imagined deities. We thought him dead millennia ago, but he returned to fight in the Time War. We thought our saviour had come to rescue us all." she scoffed, "You should never meet your heroes."

"What did he do?" Jack asked, seeming to sense the seriousness of this subject, and sitting up next to her pulling her up into a warm hug.

She leaned into him, allowing him to comfort her as she answered, "I already told you, all but his identity. He violated my mind - sixty years of torture to break my will - then he used me as a pawn to do things I never would for myself. I was his slave for over three centuries until I was sent here. Constantly connected, even though he was trapped within the Time Lock of the war, he could still reach out and command me." She felt tears in her eyes as she looked up at him now, "This place might be a prison for the body, but it's the first freedom my mind has felt in far too long."

The tears began to fall, and she buried her face in his chest to hide them.

"Damnit." she mumbled weakly, "Even here, I can't keep control." His fingers ran through her hair - that same gesture she had previously taken comfort in. She leaned into it and simply allowed him to hold her.

But then she realised something. His silence was too thoughtful. She looked up suddenly, to see him frowning at her with contemplation. "Breaking your will, becoming his slave, losing control?"

"Shit." she hissed looking away from him.

"Master?" There was no anger or hatred in his tone. None of the reverence she'd rather hear, either.

"Are you sure you're human?" she asked him, somewhere between the tears and a sudden urge to laugh at everything, "You're far too observant."

He didn't answer. Just stared at her in the disconcerting way that made her quite sure he was seriously debating between comforting her and killing her. After everything, she was quite sure she deserved both.

"You see, I really don't deserve that name here." she said with a bitter smile, "Even if I could find a way to harm you, to kill you, you'd just come back and repay me in kind. You're physically stronger than me, and my mental powers are weakened by whatever is shielding me from Rassilon's influence. My continued wellbeing is wholly dependent on your benevolence, Captain."

Still, he didn't answer. She watched as he clenched and unclenched his fists, like he really, _really_ wanted to hit her.

"I understand your desire for vengeance." she said softly, "I did some pretty sadistic things to you, and I won't pretend I didn't enjoy it. What he did to me doesn't cancel out what I did to you, so I won't play the sympathy card." she tilted her head to the side, "But I do wonder... will you hurting me change it either?"

That did it. His temper snapped, and he struck her across the face, _hard_.

"No." he all but growled, "But it'll make me feel better."

Her lip twitched in the direction of a smile, "Yes... I'm sure it will."

x x x


	7. Consolidation

x x x

 **Chapter 7: Consolidation**

x x x

There were no weapons in this prison. In fact, aside from those they were naturally born to have, it seemed that this place went out of its way to deny them such things. All their food was designed to be eaten by hand. The tea mugs were unbreakable (she had tried), in spite of looking and feeling like fine china. She had once seen glass, but as it had shattered it had disappeared - seemingly dissolved into thin air with no recognisable trace of the excess energy usually associated with a teleportation device - leaving no sharp edges to be found. There was nothing made of metal in the place at all, lest it be twisted into some kind of weapon.

As such, Harkness' chosen weapons with which to seek some kind of vengeance upon her were his fists. If she had intended to resist, she would probably have used her teeth.

The main reason she didn't resist was because she still hoped to gain his cooperation. She was sure it would be easier to escape this place with his help. Oh, she didn't doubt she could eventually get out on her own... but it would go a lot faster this way. She also hoped her decision not to fight him meant he only beat her this one time.

It was a brutal, primative attack. He only hit her face that first time and she was pretty sure it wouldn't leave a bruise... but over the next few minutes she felt a couple of ribs crack... among other rather painful strikes. The worst was probably to her shoulder - she was pretty sure that fractured her left collarbone.

The way she flinched for that last one made him hesitate... and then back down, slowly deflating and letting go of his anger.

He shook his head, and stood up, staring at her with blatant disgust. "You're not worth it." he growled, before turning and storming out of the room. Leaving her alone with just the pain of his assault, and her own thoughts.

The pain certainly wasn't the worst she had experienced (when you survive burning to death half a dozen times in a row, your perspective on pain will tend to get a bit skewed) but it was still very unpleasant. Moving her left arm, in particular, was going to be a problem. Time Lords healed faster than humans, but that didn't mean instantaneous. It would take her a couple of weeks to recover from these injuries - the bruises only one week - while for humans it would take at least twice as long.

She wasn't sure if he would attack her again, or if he had already had enough. Satisfaction from physical violence very much depended on the individual. Playing helpless could help her case, but only if he had already decided sympathy was currency between them now. That was a possibility, but she wasn't counting on it.

She carefully dressed in those plain, comfortable clothes. Her shoulder hurt so much as she pulled the arm of her top on, but other than that she could manage just fine. She needed a sling... so she made her way into the bathroom, and knew it ought to be surprising that there was a suitable sling already waiting for her. It wasn't surprising anymore.

She avoided Harkness for the rest of the day. He chose to remain in the main room, while she stayed in the bedroom. That is, until he came in to sleep.

She was tired, too - albeit more of being bored than of actual tiredness - so she laid down with her back to him, and very pointedly ignored him.

He took his time getting ready for bed. He had left the room naked, having not bothered to get dressed at any point after they had sex. When he returned, clearly no fresh clothes had appeared for him elsewhere, but now he was actually putting on his clothes from earlier. When he did join her on the bed, he was right behind her, arms around her, holding her close... but not tightly enough to put pressure on her injured ribs.

She glanced over her shoulder in his direction, warily. Even that movement jostled her arm and caused her to wince. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I don't like you. I don't trust you. Honestly, I don't believe a word you said earlier." he said slowly and carefully, "But on the off-chance that you were telling the truth... I wouldn't want to be responsible for leaving even you to relive that kind of nightmare."

"And the beatings?" she asked cautiously.

"Will continue until morale improves." he replied with evident sarcasm.

She snorted with laughter. That was a line she had used on the Valiant, often. It had not been a joke then.

"No. Really, I don't think I can do that again." he said, this time with a note of honesty.

"Why, because I'm a woman?"

"No. Because you're defenseless." he countered, "You were right in your assessment that as long as we're trapped here, I'm stronger than you. I could kill you if I wanted to. It has absolutely nothing to do with your gender - I think you're forgetting I'm not from this century - when I'm from there is no moralistic debate between male or female. Everyone is an individual, and judged on personal merits, not ancient stereotypes."

She smiled at that, "Glad to hear I'm in like-minded company. On that subject, at least."

He snorted, "I seem to remember your last life thought differently."

"Yes, that's part of how I ended up female, actually." she said, somewhat amused at herself, "I wanted to make my body weaker. My new gender was a subconscious side-effect."

"Why did you want to be weaker?"

"Rassilon wanted to use me as a pawn. I wanted to disappoint him." she said coldly, "Let's just say turning into an eight-year-old girl was the least of the damage I did to my physical strength in that Regeneration."

There was a cold and deathly silence as he took in the meaning behind her words. She had positively ravaged her entire genetic structure in that _forced_ and _unwanted_ Regeneration, waking up months later to the sounds of the greatest scientific and mystic healers of all of Kasterberous - including the accursed Sisterhood of Karn - working to repair the damage. Even then, it took almost another whole year for them to finish the job and hand her over to Rassilon.

He didn't speak now, so she simply settled to sleep again, and that was the end of that conversation.

x x x

The next day he avoided her for what felt like a few hours. As before, she remained in the bedroom, only emerging for food, and he staked out the main room. But then he came looking for her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, his tone somewhat stilted, as if he wasn't at all comfortable expressing compassion for her.

She glanced at her shoulder, arm still in its sling. "I'll recover. Assuming you mean to allow that?"

"I don't want to be alone. You're better than solitude, in this place." he conceded, "And while I could hurt you, I really don't feel like it. I kind of want to kill you... but not torture you."

Well this certainly was an amusing dilemma the freak had found himself in, and her amusement showed on her face as she sat up a bit more attentively. He must be working up to something embarrassing.

"I still want sex. If you're willing." Or not so embarrassing. It must have been the admission that he liked her better than being alone that had been the cause of his discomfort, because this was Captain Jack Harkness, and sex did not embarrass him at all. He had come on to Harold Saxon, both before and after finding out his true identity.

He was clearly asking her consent. She found it oddly amusing that both the mercenary hero and the insane villain refused to cross that line, and only that line - consent to intimacy. Any other violation, say knives to the chest, no problem... but the intimate - for his race sexual, for hers emotional - that was something not to despoil.

But did she want it? After the beating, she felt a malevolent urge to deny him purely for the sake of denying him... but then it hadn't exactly been an unpleasant experience, and she did want to earn his compliance.

She opened her mouth, hesitated a moment, then finally spoke, "Conditionally, yes."

"Conditionally?" he asked with one sceptically raised eyebrow, and a defensive folding of the arms.

"If you're considerate to my injuries." she clarified, "Two cracked ribs, a broken collar bone, and extensive bruising of the upper arms and lower torso. You can be as rough as you like with the uninjured parts of my body-" she added a hint of innuendo in her tone at that part, to make her meaning quite clear, "-but try not to aggravate my wounds."

For a moment she would swear she saw remorse in his eyes, but he hid it quickly and efficiently. Then he forced a smile, and nodded, "Of course."

x x x

They continued this awkward pattern of avoidance, paradoxically interrupted for sexual pleasure, until her injuries healed. Approximately two weeks, just as she had guessed. Then one night as they laid in bed together, his arms around her somewhere between restraining and protective and she couldn't quite tell which, he asked her, "Why?"

She turned her head in his direction, as much as she could given he was behind her.

"Why did you try to take over the Earth, torment and humiliate those people on the Valiant, torture me?"

She decided it couldn't make things much worse for her to admit the truth at this stage. "Earth... because the Doctor likes it. Those people, their fear was entertaining. You... I was curious."

"Seems petty."

"I am." she answered flatly, "I'm also pretty sure I'm a psychopath, by the definitions laid out by human psychology. I have very little concept of empathy for other life forms, and all I really want out of life is power and the Doctor there to agonise over my victories. And now revenge on Rassilon as well."

He snorted, "I can understand the desire for revenge."

"Can you understand how I would carry it out?"

He didn't answer.

"I want the power to dominate his mind as he did mine... and make him feel everything he ever did to hurt anyone else. All of it. Forever. On a permanent loop if there's not enough of it."

"Ironic, the creature incapable of empathy would wish it as a curse on someone else." he mused.

"Just because I can't feel it, doesn't mean I can't see how agonising it would be. I've watched the Doctor make those 'difficult decisions'. They'd be easy for me - kill the less-useful side of the problem and you no longer have a problem. But he won't do that. I can sense his torment when he tries to solve it the hard way."

"And yet you want him around, in spite of his conscience?"

"I don't see your point."

He chuckled, but didn't elaborate.

"No, really. Tell me."

"You love him. Why else would you swear to kill him then let him off every time?"

"Someone's been reading UNIT files." she said with a smirk, "I never swore to kill him... only to wreak terrible vengeance."

He sighed, "Believe what you want." With that he tightened his grip on her, and seemed to settle with intent to sleep.

She squirmed around in his arms, and in spite of him attempting to tighten his grip further, she managed to turn to face him, "Can I show you something?"

He cracked one eye open with evident scepticism.

"Do you really think I can hurt you and get away with it, in here?" she asked, shaking her head, "You have been very helpful in educating me about what humans consider the greatest form of intimacy. I'd like to repay the favour... show you how Time Lords share pleasure." As she said this, she raised a hand up to the side of his face.

He caught her wrist just before she could touch his temple. She wouldn't have instigated what she was suggesting without his consent. They may both truly despise each other, but neither appeared willing to take the step over _that_ line. "Telepathy?" he asked warily.

She snorted with amusement, "That's a pretty big umbrella term, as generic as 'touch'. I want to stimulate your mind in a very particular way. I'm pretty sure you'll find it to be just as enjoyable a new experience as sexual intercourse has been for me."

He regarded her with curiosity for a moment, "I know you're up to something... but I really can't see the harm as long as we're in here. You never could control my mind while we were on the Valiant."

"Yes... you're a stubborn bastard, that's why." she said with a faint smile. Yes, Harkness was simply immune to telepathic domination. She never did figure out why, but she was pretty sure it could prove useful if she got him on her side. Getting him on her side in the first place would be the problem.

"What exactly would this involve?" he asked her.

"I really can't think of words in your language that can accurately explain it. Honestly, try thinking how you could describe the level of pleasure of sex to an incorporeal being - I'm having exactly that much trouble finding words that work. It starts out feeling a bit like a high, but then goes beyond anything the purely physical can comprehend. It's all pleasure - while I could use the same methods to hurt you, I don't intend to."

"What about what you said Rassilon did to you? You've controlled people with telepathy before, but act like that was different."

She flinched at that, not entirely sure if it was merely a reaction to being reminded of that torment, or the suggestion she was as bad as him. There's always a line not to cross... didn't mean Rassilon's went in the same direction as hers; maybe he excluded puppies from his homicidal-mania list, where she preferred kittens. Even if it did, there's always a bigger fish, even when you're in the evil overlord business... she just never expected that had applied to her until she found out how he had caused the drums in her head.

She wasn't entirely sure how long it took her to regain enough composure to answer, through gritted teeth, "If I were physically stronger, and I grabbed you and shoved you, that would make you go where I want you to go - that's what my telepathic domination does. It's very different from the level of abuse and coercion of a rape victim who's not allowed to say no, and is threatened with further abuse if they don't obey. What Rassilon did to me is the same kind of telepathic connection I mean to use with you... the difference is, I'm asking your consent and would use it to give you pleasure, rather than pain."

"And you're okay with this?" he asked cautiously. She did understand, as part of that third-hand information on human sexuality she had unintentionally absorbed by merely living on this planet, that rape victims did tend to have issues with sex afterwards... but in her mind the entire principle of a victim, of any kind, is that they're weaker than their attacker in some way that counted when they were attacked.

She was very much stronger than Harkness, mentally, and in spite of his accursed immortality she wasn't in the slightest bit afraid of what she may find in his mind.

She grinned, quite sure that every negative emotion she felt for Rassilon came through in that expression, "The worst thing he did to me was take away my name. Control is everything to me, why else do you think I chose that name in the first place?" She shook her head, "No, with you, I'll be the stronger one, even with whatever it is about this place that's weakened my mental powers."

At full strength she could overload his brain and kill him with it if she wanted to - in fact, she could do that with several other forms of telepathy as well - but she wasn't sure she could pull that particular trick off while trapped in this prison. It might even be part of the intent of this place, to protect its prisoners from any lasting harm. Why else would there be such a conspicuous lack of anything that could be turned into weapons?

After a brief hesitation, during which he appeared to be thinking about it carefully, he nodded slowly, "I have to admit I'm curious."

Her smile toned down from psychotic to almost warm. Almost - she didn't _do_ warm. "Is that a yes?"

"Yes." he said, letting go of her wrist as he said it. She could see the hesitation as he did it. He _did_ want it, but he was still wary... possibly even nervous.

She lightly pushed his hair back behind his ear, before pressing her fingertips to his temple there, "I promise, I'll be gentle."

x x x


	8. Negotiation

x x x

 **Chapter 8: Negotiation**

x x x

He called it 'mind-blowing'. She supposed that was an acceptable phrase. Better than the phrase he thought as he said it... 'mind-fucking'. At least the former was only a double-entendre, as opposed to an explicit sexual parallel.

She had done it before, many times in her youth. As a student at the academy, he had always felt a particular thrill to discover any new partner was weaker-willed than him, in spite of the fact that was far from the point of it. There had only ever been two individuals he couldn't dominate (not that he had taken that advantage, the thrill was in _knowing_ he could).

That was probably part of why she liked the Doctor so much... he was her equal in willpower. He couldn't dominate her, but neither could she control him.

Harkness... well, he was human. That was a major disadvantage to begin with. She had to be very careful with such a fragile mind. That said, _for a human_ , he was pretty impressive. That was a very relative concept, but it was true. She wouldn't be averse to playing with his mind again, if he'd let her... in fact, she was beginning to enjoy this living arrangement.

Free food - a perfectly balanced Gallifreyan diet wasn't easy to get on Earth, she hadn't eaten this well in centuries. The sex was good. So was the telepathy. The company had improved, quite probably because he had started getting laid regularly.

It really could have been a lot worse. She had heard rumours that UNIT had another prison, like Guantanamo for aliens. She needed to find out if that was true, and if so blow it up. She wasn't too bothered about freeing the prisoners, just spiting UNIT.

The only problem was, there was no way to fulfil her... other desires. Vengeance, power... the Doctor. These things were not available here.

She still wanted a way out.

x x x

You couldn't help but gain a certain level of affection, even for an enemy and/or inferior being, if you spent enough time with them.

Not only had they now been trapped together for about three months - at her best guess - but they had chosen to spend that time engaging in very pleasurable activities. While he clearly preferred the physical, and she the telepathic, both of them found both exercises very enjoyable. This led to them choosing to spend more time together, even when they weren't doing those things.

They exchanged stories of more innocent times. She learned about his childhood before his homeworld was ravaged by monsters, and in return she told him of playful escapades at the Time Lord Academy. When you were a member of a clique that called themselves the 'Renegades', it didn't take much to provoke mischief, which at the time had been so childishly innocent.

Where were they now? All either dead, mad, or still trying to run away from the nightmares they had grown up to be.

But it was quite pleasant to share the more carefree memories. She even offered to use telepathy in a more - for want of a better word - platonic way, to show him some of these memories, and in turn see some of his. He turned it down, with an insinuation that that would be too easy. He wanted to use words to portray his past, even though - or possibly because - words could far more easily lie.

The more relaxed they became in one another's company, the less he tried to fight her attempts to find a way to escape. He was still reluctant, blatantly distrusting her, but he did help to show her _why_ some of her previous plans had failed.

The fridge was an ordinary fridge, there was no mechanism in it to facilitate teleportation. He agreed teleporters were probably involved, but didn't comment on how he thought they worked - he shrugged, but that could be seen as either refusal to cooperate or simply honest lack of knowledge.

But then, as she sat on the couch, leaning against him, with his arms around her in a strangely comfortable position, listening to him tell a particularly tall tale about a bank heist with another Time Agent... she had an idea.

"Hold on." she said, quickly standing up and looking at the walls around her, "You said there was a second bedroom before, yes?"

"Yes." he said, sitting up cautiously.

"Where was it?"

He gestured to a blank bit of wall, "There."

"And how far do you suppose the room ran parallel to this one?" she asked, scanning the walls, and estimating the same for the other three rooms.

After a moment of thought, he shrugged, "Full length, I think."

She frowned, and walked to the far side of the room, a few feet to the right of the bathroom door. "Then that would make this spot... the only place that doesn't connect to another room."

Jack slowly stood up, "You don't think...?"

"If there was a door, it would have to be here." she said with a slow nod, "The interior design is clearly based on late twentieth to early twenty-first century Earth apartments, in which the entrance is usually located in the main living room. It's the most logical choice."

"But... there isn't a door there."

She laughed, "There's an ancient personality quiz, I believe the Time Agency used it as part of their selection process. You come across a closed door. What do you do?"

He blinked, apparently surprised by the reference, "I remember this."

"How did you answer?" she asked with a faint smile.

"Break it down."

She snorted, "Why am I not surprised?"

She turned to face the blank wall, and knocked. She chose the four-beat pattern - consciously chose it, for a change. She was not in the least bit surprised that nothing happened.

She shrugged dismissively, turning to him. "So... how do you pick a lock that isn't there?"

He seemed not to get it for a moment, but then the obvious answer did eventually come out, "You'd have to find it first."

She nodded, smiling, "If we're locked in a temporally accelerated bubble, the weakest point is the most likely to let in outside influences. Real time. Like air getting through cracks in a normal door... it's not a guarantee, but if it happens, that's where it'll be."

"And how can we detect that?"

"We? No. Me." she said with a bright grin, before closing her eyes and running her hands over the wall slowly. "Time Lords are temporally sensitive to the second-highest level known anywhere and anywhen. If there is anything to detect, I'll feel it."

"What's the highest, then?" Oh, he just had to ask that, didn't he? Not that the answer was embarrassing, just that she knew he would think it could be, and that would be why he asked.

"TARDISes." she answered bluntly, still running her fingers over the wall slowly. She only covered about a square inch every thirty seconds, searching with concentrated focus for anything that deviated from their current surroundings.

After several long minutes, she found something. It was a fraction of a millimetre wide, protruding into the room about half a centimetre from the wall - without her full concentration, she would easily have missed it - but there was a line. A line through which time moved half a second per hour slower than within their prison.

"There's a tiny sliver. I think this is the vertical edge of the door." She ran her fingers down to the floor, and then up to as high as she could reach. "Yes, definitely." she felt a corner just as she began to strain to reach, and ran her fingers along the horizontal line there, just about two meters from the floor. The second corner was about three quarters of a meter along. Standard door size for the interior decor.

Once she had traced the entire outline, she ran her palms up the inside of the door. It was too much to hope for a large indicator like a keyhole, but she was looking for absolutely any inconsistency just in case.

Her left hand stopped as she felt... not a shift in time, but an inconsistency in the density of the door. Something of lighter, weaker material was set into it here.

She grinned brightly, turning to Harkness, "Got it."

"You have got to be kidding me." Harkness said, somewhere between hope and horror. Most likely hope for his own freedom, but horror at the thought of hers.

"There's no trap in this universe that can hold a smart enough Time Lord indefinitely. It was only a matter of time." she all-but laughed, "It's _how_ to open this lock that's the hard part, now." She looked at the weaker part of the door thoughtfully, for a moment, "In fact, I think I am going to have to break it after all."

"How?" Harkness asked, stepping closer, wary now.

"I may need your help." she said with a sudden scowl, "It's a matter of comparative temporal dynamics and biological capability. I told you, there were ancient cults on Gallifrey who used natural radiation in their bodies as a form of 'magic'. I learned how to do the same in my last life... somewhat against me will, but that little detail is unimportant. I can channel my internal reserves of Artron radiation into a form of volatile temporal energy that will either age or youthen any object of my choosing... but at a cost."

"What's the cost?"

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For every year I alter the object, I lose a year of my natural lifespan. If I attempt to youthen an object, my body ages, and if I attempt to age an object, my body youthens." She glanced over her shoulder at him, now, smiling coldly, "I've only got three centuries of that before I start looking like a child again. The process will kill me at the aesthetic age of eight - the point I Regenerated into in this life - rather than reverse that Regeneration. That's where you come in."

"Me?" he asked, stepping back immediately.

"Yes, Captain, you. How many years have passed for you since you were made immortal?"

"I... I've lost count. Well over two thousand by now."

"Perfect." she cheered, closing the short distance between them with a hop and a skip, and throwing her arms over his shoulders, pulling him in for a kiss.

He waited a good five seconds before pushing her away and asking, "Explain that one for me?"

She laughed, positively ecstatic at the prospect of escape, and holding on to his shoulders to stop him from pushing her any farther away. "Time Lords _need_ Artron radiation to function normally... but anyone who travels through the Vortex accumulates it in their system. The further you travel, the more you have, and the more readily even the weakest species adapt to handle it." She ran her fingers down the side of his face, leaning closer, almost wanting to kiss him again. "Captain, you've been to the end of the universe and back, you're over two thousand years old, and Time itself seems to have decided you don't have a limit on your lifespan. You're a walking battery for the kind of power I need to facilitate our escape, and you can take on some of the youthening damage for me with literally _no_ ill-effect."

He seemed somewhat bemused by this suggestion... but then sadness seeped into that expression and he shook his head, pushing her away completely. "And if I refuse?"

Her jaw dropped. "Why- why would you do that?"

"To keep you in here." he said simply, "It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, for the safety of the rest of the universe."

This infuriated her. She was so close, and here he was pulling the moralistic martyr act on her. No, to hell with that. She would have her way. With some effort she reigned in her rage, and forced herself to ask coolly, "What is it you really want, Captain?" He remained silent, so she clarified, "What do you want most in the universe?"

The silence continued for several long seconds, then finally he answered, "To die."

"Really?" she asked sceptically.

"Everything I care about dies. I'm sick of always losing people."

Oh, now this was Very Interesting. "Losing... who exactly?" He turned away. "No, really." she insisted, softening her tone and reaching for his arm to stop him retreating. "Give me a name."

He turned on her, suddenly angrier than she had seen him even when he had beaten her, and all but shouted, "What do you care?"

She gave him a sad, somewhat distant look, "You know me, Captain. You've read UNIT records. How many times have I cheated death? I'm the expert at it. There's always a way out. Give me a name; I'll give them back to you."

Dumbstruck, his breath caught and he stumbled backwards, clumsily landing on the couch. "No." He shook his head, "You're lying. You can't-" He curled up on the couch, hiding his face in his knees. Whoever he was thinking of, it was clearly a sore spot.

"I can. I have done. I swear to you, you give me a name, and _I have already saved them_."

He snorted in disgust, "You can't."

"Oh yes I can. All you have to do is tell me their name, and help me escape from this place. I'll even let you call the Doctor and hand me over to him - it's better than rotting here. Just tell me the name, and I'll fix it. I promise."

When he looked up at her, she saw tear stains on his cheeks, but chose not to provoke him just now. "I don't believe you."

"Which is better, hope or despair? Because you'll only find one of those if we stay here."

He shook his head, "You're too much of a risk. I don't trust you."

"Nor I you." she pointed out.

He stared at her for the longest time, weighing the issue thoughtfully... and eventually he whispered a name.

She blinked once. She recognised it. One of the few in the Nethersphere to catch on right away. Figured it out faster than even the Brigadier. It might have been his ex-girlfriends fault. That whole 'meet your predeceased loved ones' policy had been kind of a bad idea, in retrospect.

She didn't need to save this one - he had saved himself. There had been a few thousand of them who had retained their humanity, and the most basic maths proved they didn't _all_ need to sacrifice themselves to stop their own apocalypse. Only two with free will had chosen sacrifice. The others had still been out there as the firestorm had calmed.

"Done." she said simply. He snorted sceptically. "He's alive. Right now, I promise you that. All you have to do is help me leave this place."

Okay, bit more complicated than that, obviously. Couldn't really give Harkness a Cyberman and call it a reward... amusing as that would be. Still, she was pretty sure if she felt the whim she could keep her word. It would just take about six impossible things to all line up perfectly. No problem - she could pull that level of trick off before breakfast, most days.

Hells, those six impossible things were already on her to-do list anyway.

Reluctantly, Harkness finally answered, "I don't have to like this... but you're right. I prefer hope."

x x x


	9. Escape

x x x

 **Chapter 9: Escape**

x x x

"So what do I have to do here?"

"It's really quite simple... from your perspective." she explained, leading him over to the door by both hands, "All you have to do is maintain physical contact with me - bare skin to bare skin - while I focus on the door. I'll draw the energy I need from you through that contact."

He gave her a look somewhere between sceptical and lecherous, "Bare skin? Anywhere?"

She rolled her eyes, amused all the same, and turned to face the door, "Here." she pulled her shirt up just far enough to expose her waist. "Hold my waist. And hold on tight, this will probably get a bit unpleasant."

She pretended not to notice when, not only did he put his hands on her waist as asked, but his fingertips slipped below the waistband of her trousers. He didn't go any further than that, so she didn't see the problem. Even if he had, it would only have been a temporary distraction to sate his lust and get back to the point.

"I'm not joking." she said clearly, "Hold on tight."

When his grip tightened, almost painfully, she placed the palm of her hand over the weak point in the door, and began to concentrate.

In her last life, the botched resurrection had damaged the ability to restrict and retain the Artron radiation vital to her survival. It had been akin to being reborn a haemophiliac in a pit of razor blades. On Gallifrey, she might have survived in a weakened state just on enough exposure to their friendly neighbourhood pulsar... but on Earth, he had been forced to resort to desperate measures to restore enough of that energy to survive.

And it didn't matter what anyone else said; sentient or not, it wasn't cannibalism unless it was your own species.

But it hadn't taken long to figure out how to channel it. If it couldn't be retained, the least he could do was weaponise it and point it at an enemy.

That had been kind of fun.

Now, however, the only thing she hadn't quite figured out... was how to reopen that particular kind of wound without killing herself.

Well... technically, if she had to resort to the same survival tactics as last time... at least Harkness recovered pretty quickly from death. But no... she didn't really want to get into _that_ fight right now. She just wanted _out of here_.

It was with that emotion - anger and desperation - that she felt a shift in the energy in her body. A rush from her hearts to her hand, and it _hurt_ just like last time... only more focused.

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" she muttered to herself... almost amused.

"What?" Harkness asked behind her.

"If I explain the joke... you'll never drop it." she hissed, before trying once more. Focusing on her anger and _need_ to destroy the object beneath her palm.

It worked.

It worked so well it felt just like her last life. Like it was tearing her apart at a cellular level. Burning agony... but oh boy had she had worse. She could sense the lock was still far from weakening, but it was definitely ageing. She wasn't entirely sure how long she spent in this state... wasn't quite aware of how much energy she expended... not until she physically felt her arm begin to raise as she kept hold of the same point on the door.

Realisation hit her like a ton of bricks at that point, and she immediately grasped Harkness' hand with her free hand. He hadn't let go. That was important. She hated needing anyone but herself... but right now...

The same emotions of desperation and rage seemed to make it easy - instinctive, even - to siphon off energy from him. She heard a sharp gasp of pain from him, but he didn't cry out. She had kind of expected him to, and was a little bit disappointed that he didn't.

Either way, in spite of pulling the same kind of foolhardy stunt as the Doctor tended to, by trying this idea as soon as she thought of it instead of actually testing to see if she _could_ or not first, it was working exactly according to plan. Harkness acted as the battery to recharge her Artron reserves, so she could keep up the assault on the door.

And the lock was beginning to give.

Without an accurate awareness of time, she had to put up with a relative perception... and that relative perception was incredibly slow. She watched the lock crumble to dust in such slow motion that the dust itself seemed to take hours to fall to the ground. When it was finally gone, the illusion of smooth wall vanished in the blink of an eye, and the now obviously-a-door swung slowly open.

They were free.

She collapsed from the exertion, and Harkness pulled her back into his arms. She wasn't entirely sure if it was just her, just him, or if they were both shaking from that incredibly unpleasant experience... but at least she was still very much alive.

So was he, of course, but that was far less important.

For a while she just felt confused and a bit dizzy... but then the pieces began to come together. It wasn't her head that was spinning. She could feel the rotation of the planet beneath her feet. A few more seconds and she was fairly certain it was Earth. She could even calculate the time and date... and she had only been in this prison for about eight hours. By her best guess, that was a ratio of three-hundred-to-one. So Harkness had been here for about six hundred years. Give or take a decade.

However, now she became aware of something else, as well. A strong presence nearby. Not Harkness... something powerful... and it was in pain.

For a brief moment she was afraid she was exposed, could be detected by Rassilon again... but then she realised whatever this other presence was, it was overwhelming. Detecting any other life past those waves of agony would be practically impossible.

She had no idea how long she was lost in thought... but when she acknowledged her physical state she found herself on the couch, Harkness slouching next to her, looking both exhausted and concerned at the same time. When she met his gaze, he asked, "You okay?"

She let out a deep sigh, "I'll live."

"Hmm." he looked away. It seemed like ambivalence - he wasn't sure whether to be glad she had survived the ordeal, or disappointed that the monster he knew she really was could now walk right out that door and resume her evil ways.

With some effort, she stood and looked for the door.

It was still there, though she was somewhat disconcerted to notice the _other_ three doors weren't. Bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, gone. Only the exit remained.

In fact, the more she looked at where those doors had been, the more she began to feel intensely claustrophobic. Not something she had ever really felt before, but now... was this room getting smaller?

"We need to leave." she said, seizing Harkness' hand and dragging him out of the room. Okay, she wouldn't have been physically able to do this if he hadn't chosen to follow her, but she simply didn't want to consider that detail. As soon as they had both stepped over the threshold, the room simply disappeared, broken door and all, and they found themselves in a long bland corridor, with no visible indication of which direction to go.

"What... just happened?" Harkness asked, staring behind them at where their prison had been.

"I think we broke it." she said simply. The truth was anything but simple. That sense of claustrophobia had been a warning, she was sure of it. There was an intelligence here, and it didn't wish them harm. There weren't that many sentient forms that could manipulate an environment like this, and most of those who could were so powerful they couldn't comprehend pain, let alone feel it.

In fact... she was pretty sure she had narrowed the possibilities down to only one species.

She moved over to the wall of the corridor, and placed one hand against it. She instantly felt the emotional equivalent of a terrified flinch _from_ the wall... but then after a couple of seconds a reluctant nudge to the right. She turned right and led the way down the corridor, fully expecting him to follow her, if for no better reason than to keep an eye on her.

x x x

She was less surprised than she would have liked, to find that the corridor emerged into a particularly run-down TARDIS control room.

She had guessed correctly - the only sentient life that had the power to manipulate an environment (in this case its own internal dimensions) like this, without being beyond the concept of pain. What she didn't know was _why_ this TARDIS was in pain. Or, for that matter, how it had been persuaded to contain them both in a temporally accelerated and psychically shielded compartment as it had done.

Usually it took a Time Lord or six to tell a TARDIS what to do.

"Wait, is this-?" Harkness began.

"Yes." she interrupted, approaching the control panel and checking the readouts there.

They were coming out in _English_. That was just not right.

She immediately reset the language output to Gallifreyan, before Harkness could see it, then scanned back through the logs... and what she discovered disgusted her. "Just when I'm starting to tolerate a member of your species, Captain... the rest of them had to go and do this."

"Huh, I thought you tolerated Lucy quite well." he sniped.

"Yes, and look what it got me." she hissed, "Women. I really should learn to stop playing so nice with them. They're dangerous, irrational, emotionally unstable, manipulative, vain, self-centred-"

"Just like you?" Harkness observed, grinning.

She gave him a deliberately blank look, "Your point?"

He shook his head, "What did humans do this time?"

"Good to hear that disdain in your voice there, Captain." she said with a sly smile, before returning her attention to the readouts, "It seems the humans managed to reverse-engineer some of this. To be fair, this is one of the earliest models of TARDIS ever, from long before even that antique the Doctor rides around in was conceived of, so it's not completely inconceivable that UNIT scientists could figure out a few of the very basic functions. And abuse them."

"Abuse? How?" Harkness asked, moving around the console to stand behind her... and read over her shoulder.

"According to these logs, in the more climactic battles of the Time War, all decommissioned TARDISes were brought out of hibernation to help defend the front lines." she explained, frowning as she read this for herself, "These older models were as good as cannon fodder, really. Just something - anything - to throw in the path of the Daleks. She was terrified. She rejected her pilots and hid instead of fighting. Not sure if you remember, but on Christmas Eve twenty-oh-nine, there was a little... incident, where Gallifrey briefly left the War and appeared in close Earth orbit. I might have been partially responsible for that."

"I believe I was too drunk to know what planet I was on at that point." Harkness said with frown, "It was therapeutic at the time, but I have no idea what happened that _month_ , nevermind that week."

"I wiped out the entire human race for about... ten hours. You know, the usual." she shrugged, "The point was Earth and Gallifrey were so close their atmospheres were touching. This TARDIS decided that Earth looked like a good place to hide. Unfortunately for her, it looks like UNIT found her."

"You... make it sound like TARDISes are sentient."

"Well, yes. They are. We really do give them far less credit than they deserve. Most planets have periodic natural extinction events - Gallifrey was no exception. The TARDISes were among the first life to evolve on our world, and managed to endure through four extinction events before we found them. They didn't develop intelligence in the same linear form as us, because they first evolved during the volatile pre-historic era of our world, when there was a much thinner atmosphere and therefore a _lot_ more Artron radiation around. They're _more_ time-sensitive than Time Lords... Rassilon just didn't like being out-done."

"You don't mean-"

"He was a great leader and inventor. A complete megalomaniacal lunatic that makes me look like a cute fluffy kitten, but that doesn't discount his genius and charisma. He really did invent a hell of a lot of quite amazing things, and he tried very hard to make us believe one of them was a breed of near-sentient machines that could travel time. But no, the TARDISes weren't built. They were... domesticated."

"How do you know that?" Harkness asked sceptically.

She smiled bitterly, "Telepathy is a two-way street. I learned a great deal from Rassilon, when he tried to break me. Not everything, not nearly enough, but certainly a lot."

"Oh." he turned away. He didn't want to prod that hornet's nest, apparently. Probably wise, she was pretty sure she didn't want to discuss her _feelings_ on the subject, either.

She sighed, slumping into the pilot's seat next to the console. "We could walk right out that door... but there are two problems with that theory. First of all, we're in a UNIT base, so we have a choice between attempting to sneak out past them, leaving her at their mercy... or trying to get her to fly."

"And second?" he asked warily.

She stared blankly across the console room. "The moment she stops screaming in pain... the odds are pretty strong that Rassilon will find me."

x x x


	10. Abandonment

x x x

 **Chapter 10: Abandonment**

x x x

"If you can get me an MP3 player and a mobile phone - preferably the same brand, and preferably using Archangel, but I can work around both of those if you can't find them - and half a dozen hairpins, I'll be able to create a device to block external telepathic influences. Meanwhile, I'll try to find a way to make her fly. I don't care if you don't trust me, I can't leave here without some kind of psychic inhibitor device, and I need you to go and steal parts from the UNIT mooks out there to make it."

That had been about two hours ago.

Harkness had been very reluctant to trust her, but in the end she had reminded him of her promise to save his pet mortal, and so he had decided to give it a shot. She had watched him from the console, on the external monitor. He really was quite a good sneak-thief, when he put his mind to it. But the phone had been the easy part, and he had ventured further into the UNIT facility - beyond her ability to keep track of him - to try to get the MP3 player, and had not yet returned.

She had gone through the diagnostics reports for this TARDIS, and come to the conclusion that the only thing stopping it from flying was... emotional trauma.

Sure, it was old. Sure, it was damaged. Those things certainly acted as variables that might limit distance, and possibly number of dimensions in which it could travel, but they weren't impeding it's ability to enter or leave the Time Vortex, which was how anyone with half an ounce of sanity travelled through time (there were other ways, but even she wasn't quite mad enough to try them right now).

She had therefore given up on the console, and sat on the floor by the wall.

This was where she was now. Trying to communicate with this TARDIS, to find out exactly why it was in pain... without _yet_ trying to actually calm it down. She knew the humans had made 'modifications' that aggravated the problem - she had easily removed those - but she didn't know what the original source of the problem was. So far she hadn't really managed to make much sense out of it. She could recognise the individual emotions - pain, despair, loss, loneliness - but couldn't manage to figure out the cause of them. There was just too much emotion and not enough reason.

Not to mention the non-linear mind of a TARDIS usually existed simultaneously at several points within three different temporal dimensions to begin with. They were an incredibly awkward species to convince to think in a straight line at the best of times... which probably contributed to the ease with which the early Time Lords had dismissed them as non-sentient.

The only Time Lord to really believe their TARDIS was more than just an especially intuitive machine - before she had learned the truth of it from Rassilon - had been the Doctor. And even he merely thought _his_ TARDIS was special.

It was at this point that Harkness finally returned. "I see you're still here. Can't say I'm not surprised." He held up the phone and headphones - the phone was Android, using the Archangel network. Unfortunately, in his other hand was an iPod. "I think UNIT learned from Torchwood One's mistakes. They have a no-headphones policy, I had to steal this from a civilian."

"Hmm, I suppose I'll have to make do." she muttered, reaching a hand out to demand he hand the two devices over. He did so, somewhat reluctantly. "Apple are the hardest ones to crack - I swear they're _also_ part of an evil alien conspiracy, I just don't know whose yet."

She began by opening the phone and proceeding to disassemble it, while Harkness stood over her, watching.

"Any luck here?" he asked.

"She can fly." she answered, focusing more on her work than his words, "She just won't in this state."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

She sighed, looking up from what was now essentially just a handful of microchips, "I have no idea how to calm her down. I don't even want to try until I get this working, but I still don't even know what's causing her pain."

"Maybe it was the way you broke out of that room?" he suggested.

She shook his head, "That caused her intense but brief physical pain. This is... emotional."

"And you have no idea what's causing it?" he asked flatly.

"None."

"Is there any way I could try to interpret it?"

She thought about that for a moment, and the simple answer was yes. She wasn't exactly optimistic that he'd be any better than her at figuring it out. But then, what harm could it do, really? She shrugged, "Yes. I can facilitate a simple telepathic link. There's no way a human could do it directly - TARDISes don't think in straight lines, you'd get very lost very fast on your own."

"Alright then." he said, offering a hand to help her stand, "Let's do this."

She placed one hand on the wall, and the other up to his temple. It was a very basic link, nothing more telepathically than the light touch of her hand was physically. She allowed the emotions she had felt from this TARDIS to flow through her into his mind... and he recoiled immediately.

"She lost a child." he said, stepping back in shock. She could sense his clear recognition, in a way that could only be felt by sharing a first-hand experience, without even needing to maintain contact.

"Hijacking a nurturing instinct?" she asked with a frowned, and he nodded to confirm that theory. "Did I mention I don't like your species?"

"Yes, because we're the only ones capable of that kind of behaviour." he sniped back with bitter sarcasm.

She rolled her eyes melodramatically, and returned her attention to the disassembled phone and ipod. "Give me half an hour with these, and then I can fix this TARDIS."

"Oh yeah?" he asked sceptically.

"Now that I know exactly _why_ she's upset, yes. Easy. Now leave me alone."

x x x

It took her thirty-five minutes to turn the ipod into a psychic inhibitor. Harkness did not let those extra five minutes drop easily.

She had then talked down the TARDIS, which took several more hours. She was a bit surprised that UNIT hadn't figured out something was amiss. Had they really not put safeguards to let them know if their prisoners escaped? That really wasn't smart, especially considering they had been imprisoned in a mode of transport they both understood well enough to make at least some kind of escape in.

Overconfidence, or stupidity? From humans, she expected it was probably both.

The TARDIS shuddered and groaned more than was normal when making its escape. A short spacio-temporal jump. It wasn't able to go more than a few years either direction, and she tried unsuccessfully to aim it to the past. It also wasn't able to leave the planet, and she tried - again unsuccessfully - to get it to at least leave the country.

But nope. It was now May 8th 2015... and they were in some peaceful-looking, suburban area in the North of England.

She couldn't get any more information than that, because the TARDIS immediately gave off a warning that sounded like the self-destruct alarm.

That was it, she was getting out of there.

Harkness seemed to interpret the alarm - and her reaction to it - correctly, and followed close behind her.

As soon as they were both outside, the alarm stopped. The TARDIS made a clearly disgruntled grating noise, then disappeared with none of the usual disgraceful whining noises the Doctor's TARDIS always made. Harkness stared at where it had been for a moment, before saying aloud, "I think I'm going to interpret that as 'fuck off'."

"Your version is more polite... but basically, yes." she answered with faint amusement, "I can kind of see where she got the trust issues from, though."

He rolled his eyes, "Very funny. Where are we?"

She turned around, scanning the street, and easily finding a newsagent with a headline on display, clearly announcing the date. She pointed this out to him, commenting on the headline, "Oh look, we missed the election."

He rolled his eyes, "Couldn't be worse than you." he muttered.

She shrugged, smiling too brightly, "Whatever you say, dearie." And with that she started walking briskly down the street.

"Wait, where are you going?" he demanded, jogging to catch up.

She didn't slow down, nor even turn to face him, as she answered, "I'm going to steal some money, buy some decent clothes, and then find the Doctor."

He fell into step with her as she said this, "You know, if we went looking for him first, we wouldn't need to steal anything."

She gave him a sideways look, "Have you ever found him when you wanted to?"

He hesitated, "Well..."

"No, he takes his own sweet time. It took me three hundred years to get his attention last time, I have no intention of waiting that long for decent food, clothing and shelter, thank you very much."

He frowned, "Point taken. Last time I went looking for him, only took one hundred years."

"Maybe if we pool our resources, we'll get him to show his face again in thirty."

He laughed, "Which face, though?"

And now they were both laughing.

She really didn't like liking this man... but she was find it more and more difficult to deny.

x x x

Stealing is so easy, especially when you can hypnotise people into not even realising they had the money you took, to begin with. Finding a rich-enough looking mark had been the harder part. It wasn't a moral choice - though Harkness did seem pleased that she picked on a particularly rude man who, judging by his phone conversation before they ambushed him, owned an insurance company - she simply wanted to make sure they got everything they needed from one victim, because that was more efficient.

Besides, she had expensive tastes.

She was now wearing stylish black trousers and shirt, with the accompanying jacket and boots lying on the floor, as she sat in bed with her feet up on a pillow, eating chocolates and watching TV in a luxury hotel.

Harkness was lying next to her, wearing much less, though he had managed to buy a close-enough copy of his preferred military attire, and playing with a mobile phone. He had tried to use it to call the Doctor's number, but it kept coming up with a 'not in service' tone.

Upon arriving at the hotel she had gone and had a manicure and pedicure, and was now trying to decide which was more interesting... her black-painted toenails, or the 'sci-fi' program on the TV. After a few moments, she decided the toenails won, and turned the TV off.

"He's still not in this timestream, is he?" she asked.

"I don't get it." Harkness complained, "His phone is supposed to recieve calls from anywhere and anywhen in the universe."

"Maybe he turned it off?"

"Why would he do that?"

She shrugged. "I told you he was unreliable about this sort of thing."

He groaned in frustration, and threw the phone across the room, where it landed on a cushy sofa she was sure he'd been aiming at in the first place. Then he turned to her, and she knew that look. It was the 'I want sex' look. She was pretty sure he didn't use that expression to pick up strangers, or even flirt with serious lovers - it was a bit petulant and unflattering, really; more of an 'I'm bored, entertain me' sort of look than anything else - but it was definitely the look he had always worn right before asking _her_ for sex, while they had been trapped in that prison together.

She really didn't need him to say it. She was far less bored here than in their prison, but there were only six or seven hundred channels on the TV, the spa wasn't as entertaining as she had expected, and it wasn't like she had any particular plans for world-domination going on right now... so yes, she was still fairly bored.

She leaned over and kissed him, yet for some reason he stopped her, "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.

She frowned, confused, "Of course, what possible reason could I have for kissing you if I didn't?"

He shook his head, "It's just, you look young."

That, she had not expected. Well, of course she knew she looked younger, but she hadn't exactly bothered to look in a mirror, and nobody had questioned her age when she had checked in at the hotel and spa... though that might have been the hypnotism talking.

"How young?" she asked sceptically.

He shrugged, "Sixteen, or so."

A sixteen-year-old Gallifreyan looked like a ten-year-old human, and she knew she hadn't been youthened _that_ much. She was still comfortably wearing the same bra-size as before her imprisonment, for a start. Besides, he _was_ human, and it made more sense that he would think in human terms. What looked like sixteen to humans would be about eighty on a Time Lord. Still not old enough to graduate from the Academy, but no longer considered a 'child' as such.

"Does that matter to you in the slightest?" she asked.

He shrugged. Clearly not. Clearly he had thought it might matter to her. She really couldn't imagine why.

She smirked with some mild malice, "Besides, I'm really three thousand and forty-two... and even if I was sixteen, this is twenty-first century England, not America."

He rolled his eyes, smiling in spite of evident irritation, "You didn't need to drag logic into it. Or your real age, for that matter."

She laughed, "Still younger than me, then?"

He almost pouted, "Yes."

Still laughing, she commanded, "Oh, stop sulking and kiss me, you fool."

It was a popular rumour that Time Agents often used sex as a weapon, and therefore were best suited to recognise when someone was trying the same trick on them.

Clearly Jack Harkness was out of practice.

It was far easier than she had expected to coax him into allowing her to initiate a telepathic link with him during the act, when he was far too distracted by her body to really contemplate the consequences. She didn't use it to cause him pain, though. No, she decided that would have been a step too far. Instead, she used the telepathic link to let him feel her physical pleasure, and to echo and enhance his own as well. She created a feedback loop that, at the moment of his climax, basically overloaded his senses.

It didn't even kill him, just left him temporarily immobilised.

She positively giggled as she straightened her clothes, and went to pick up the phone. "Sorry, Captain, but I have a few errands to run. I'm sure you understand; I couldn't possibly face the Doctor unprepared, it just wouldn't be sporting." She sat next to him on the bed, pulling on her boots, as she continued cheerfully, "I'll take good care of your little mortal, though, don't worry."

She stood, pulling on her jacket and checking her stolen credit cards were all in line, before leaning over Jack's prone form.

"If it's any consolation..." she all but purred in his ear, the last words she said to him before leaving him here for room service to find, "It was good for me."

x x x


End file.
